The presentation covers assessment and intervention of social interaction skills with emotionally disturbed children. Noting the importance of social interaction skills and yet the neglect of such skills in the literature, the paper advocates a systematic instructional approach to improve the social acceptability of emotionally disturbed children. Assessment, which must precede intervention, should include sociometric ratings and direct and specific observations of interaction. Intervention should address changes for teachers and peers as well as for the disturbed students. Among the intervention approaches considered are group meetings for discussing a problem situation, use of the buddy system, groupings to accommodate the sociometric choices of the special needs child, and playing of compliment games in which students learn to support each other. Teachers are urged to use descriptive praise, provide for group reinforcement, encourage peer tutoring, and model acceptance of the disturbed student. Feedback, counseling, and specific skill training are among the approaches advocated for emotionally disturbed students. (CL)